It looks like a couple of lawn chairs strapped to the frame of a Chevy truck.

Back to Washington!
We last left off on DC Day 2 at the American Art Museum & Portrait Gallery and I teased that some Air & Space was coming next. I left the art gallery in the late afternoon feeling like I could have spent the rest of the day there, but there was too much to see & too little time to be devoting whole days to one museum.
The Gallery is one of the Smithsonian institutions that are not on the National Mall. It`s actually located about 1km north, so only a short walk away. On my way to the next museum on my list I stopped for a late lunch. It is so easy to lose track of time when you’re wrapped up in how much there is to see that it`s suddenly 2pm and you haven’t eaten anything. I was very excited to come across a Pret a Manger. Justine & I had frequented their establishments in London and beyond during our Europe trip (like this day) and I found their food the perfect quick meal. I munched on a wrap & chai tea and contemplated where my next stop should be.

It seemed logical to go straight to the place I most wanted to see. That way I would be sure not to miss it. My path from Pret to the National Air & Space Museum took me through the National Gallery of Art’s Sculpture Garden. The National Gallery is not a Smithsonian owned museum, however it does sit on the Mall and is also free to visit.
It was a really lovely day out, bright sunny and hot. Maybe a little too hot. Actually, definitely a little too hot. I was happy to take a walk outside though, as I knew I was heading to another wonderfully air-conditioned building at the other end. The National Gallery’s Sculpture Garden offered a wide variety of styles. Here are my favorites: the giant spider thing, a replica of an old Paris Metro entrance (this made me so nostalgic that it almost physically hurt…if you wanna read about my time in Paris you can click here…or here…or here…or here…), The crazy metal tree you can see behind the metro stop and this house.

The last is literally called House I and was created by American artist Roy Lichtenstein. What was really eye catching about it (and that doesn’t translate into a photo) is that the house is actually a “V” shape and appears to dramatically change proportions as you walk by it. Very cool, very clever!

The Air & Space Museum started out as simply the National Air Museum in 1946. After the space race of the 50’s & 60’s the Space part of it was added. Walking into the building it’s like “BAM! Check out all of this stuff!” I was barely even in the door and already my camera was out and I was snapping photos of planes, rockets & the Gemini IV space capsule. I was so overwhelmed that I missed the moon rock the first time by. My piece of advice for entering this museum: Don’t miss the moon rock! I lucky figured it out and doubled back later because no one wants to miss the opportunity to touch an actual piece of the moon!

Feeling a little over stimulated I decided to grab a map and plan a route. Little did I know that the museum had the world’s most helpful staff! The elderly gentleman behind the counter inquired into my area of interest (all of it!) and time commitment (as long as it took!) then pulled out his red pen & a map and plotted a course that best suited my needs.
My museum expert had me starting on the second floor at the beginning: the Wright Brothers. In the center of this room stood the actual 1903 Wright Flyer, aka the first plane to every accomplish powered flight! After casually flying from Edmonton to DC it’s incredible to see where it all started, and only just over 100 years ago!

Continuing clockwise around the upper floor I watched airplanes progress from a new discovery to a war-time necessity. Air travel first gained popularity as a sport in the 1930’s. Legends were made as pilots pushed each other to travel further and faster. Amelia Earhart flew her Lockhead 5B Vega clear across the Atlantic and then North America, being the first woman to do each. Many others had a more tragic fate. One display featured the slightly morbid game of Success, Rescued or Dead, where you read of pilots and their attempted flights and had to guess the results. Airplane development & production really took off though at the outbreak of the Second World War. The minor involvement of air travel during WWI had proved immensely useful and all nations were determined to seize this advantage. The German found the most success and by the end of WWII the Allies were so eager to capture examples of these advanced aircrafts that they instituted Operation LUSTY (LUftwaffe Secret TechnologY). The flyable planes were flown to Europe and then transported overseas to the US to be studied.

Continuing downstairs the museum delved into the progression of commercial air travel. The early advertisements made the journey look awfully glamorous, but the reality was somewhat less so. A one-way ticket across the country cost $338 in 1929. At that time a Ford Model A cost merely $525…can you imagine if you could buy a car with the price of round-trip airfare!?! If you could afford to board the plane the ride was not the luxurious ride we experience today. I know what you’re thinking: Luxurious? Do you call being jammed into a middle seat between a smelly man and an obese woman while listening to screaming babies and having to pay for a lackluster meal luxurious? Well in comparison it is! The noise of a early commercial jet in take off was 120dB in the cabin…that’s 10dB louder than front row ay a rock concert…it’s also only 10dB lower than the threshold of pain. But I am sad I am too young to have ever seen flight attendants dressed in these get-ups:


One of the most interesting things I saw all day was a video mapping the flights of all planes flying over the USA in one day. At peak times there can be upwards of 5000 planes in the air. And then it showed the air traffic on 9/11. 5000 planes in the air, then within minutes every one of them grounded. It’s amazing they could have that kind of control…although I also find it amazing that with that many planes in the air at once they aren’t constantly crashing into each other.

Moving on I entered the Space half of the museum. I find planes plenty interesting, but they are nothing compared to spaceships!
The Space Race Gallery features a Skylab Orbital Workshop. Here you can see an example of an orbiting astronaut’s quarters. They are the opposite of roomy. In this Gallery you will also find the Missile Pit. Um, can you say coolest name ever?


Travelling through the space exhibits there was many interesting and educational things to see. I learned about the early sky mapping, examined space ship design models, followed the space race timeline and saw an actual Apollo Lunar Module. This last one was set up to recreate a moon landing and I could almost feel the weightlessness of the astronauts as they took their first step into the great unknown.

My favourite area was Apollo to the Moon where each of the American space flights were documented and displayed. The gallery of actual equipment blew my mind. “Oh that’s just a actual space suit worn by an actual Apollo astronaut as he walked on the actual moon. No big deal.” Huge deal! The Lunar Rover was really fascinating. I’m amazed that scientists were able to create a vehicle that would operate on the low gravity, air-less surface of moon… Although the guys next to me seemed to be less impressed. The one guy took one look and said: I don’t know…It just looks like a couple of lawn chairs strapped to the frame of an old Chevy track.”

Oh, and I also saw Scott Hamilton skate the universe…???…

And with that I wrap up this post…more on some of the other Smithsonian’s to come…but until then:
To Infinity & Beyond!

Love, Luck & Lightyears,
Kris

The Art of DC

Today was a lonely day. Mom had meetings starting at breakfast & running through to a late working-dinner, so I was on my own all day. It was a good day though! Jam-packed with beauty & knowledge…aka art galleries & museums.

I started the day at the American Art Museum / National Portrait Gallery. These are two more members of the Smithsonian family, and two I was really excited to visit. I will admit that I know very little about art. While touring some of the most famous galleries of Europe I came to the conclusion that I enjoy art. I appreciate its beauty. I realize its depth. I acknowledge the talent it takes to create it. But I know nothing about it. So why was I enthused to visit a gallery? Because of all of the reasons I just listed! I want to admire art & I want to know more about it. It’s actually a goal of mine and increased exposure can only help.
Plus, Portrait Galleries are only half about the art and half about history…which I love! Justine & I visited the British National Portrait Gallery twice while we were in London and still have yet to complete it. The idea of the gallery is to gather portraits of all of the most influential Americans (or people who have most influenced America) and hang them together. Beside each portrait is a brief description of the person, why they’re awesome enough to have made the cut and, sometimes, facts about the painting itself. I could (and have now on 3 occasions) spend hours reading about all of the people featured. They obviously all have interesting stories behind them. I went in hoping this Portrait Gallery would be even half as good as the one in London and found it stacked up much better.
Now I am realizing this is going to be a lengthy post just describing these two galleries. So that’s all I’ll cover here & the afternoon will be its own post. Teaser: Air & Space!

The American Art Museum occupies the west half of the Donald W. Reynolds Center for Art & Portraiture, while the Portrait Gallery covers the east…although they do crisscross here & there. The Greek Revival style building was originally the US Patent Building…a pretty nice place to go get your patents! In 1968 it was repurposed to its current use. Renovations were made from 2000 to 2006 to make the space more usable. This reno involved covering the interior courtyard with a really interesting glass roof. The roof actually “floats,” meaning it rests on the steel columns, as the historic building cannot support it’s weight. The columns also act as drains. When it rains the water runs down within the columns rather than pooling in the roof’s unique curves. I personally loved the design! It’s some pretty kick-ass engineering and an interestingly modern contrast to the 177-year-old building.

The courtyard also features a scrim. What is a scrim you ask? It is a fountain, which only features a thin layer of water flowing over the ground. I watched two toddlers having the best time splashing about and adorably enjoying the non-threatening water attraction.

Most of the Smithsonian’s offer this really cool thing: the Highlights Tour. It’s an approximately 1-hour guided tour of the most exciting, important and well-known pieces/exhibits/collections in that museum. I had to try it out and thought that an Art museum would be a great place to do it…maybe I’d learn something and expand my limited knowledge. Some of the pieces I‘m going to talk about below were on the tour, others weren’t. In general this is my personal Highlights Tour for you…

Starting with the Portrait Gallery, this museum shows the history of America through its people. Most of the portraits are separate by era, however there were a few special sections. One detailed sport stars (mainly baseball, but also golf, boxing, and tennis) and another influential musicians & actors. Favorites? The wood carving of Bob Hope, Gretzky’s Time cover and Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe. And of course the portrait of husband & wife team Ely & Josephine Culbertson who started a “bridge craze” in the 20’s.

The Origin’s section provided a lot of interesting reading, but I enjoyed recognizing people of the Twentieth Century. I saw most of my favorite authors, like an oil painting of F. Scott Fitzgerald, and loved the black & white photo of Jim Hensen (the genius behind the muppets). Some inclusions made perfect sense, like Rudi Guliani or Bill Gates, while others left me somewhat flummoxed, like LL Cool J…seriously, look at his obnoxious painting below. Some of the inclusions weren’t even American, like Winston Churchill and Albert Einstein.


The prize jewel though is the Hall of Presidents. This is the only complete collection of original presidential portraits outside of the White House. I have a weird fascination with presidents and took time to read all of their bio cards. The best ones were:
Lyndon B. Johnson – “This portrait was meant to be Johnson’s official Whitehouse likeness…[until] Johnson declared it ‘the ugliest thing I ever saw’.”
Richard M. Nixon – “Artist Norman Rockwell admitted that he had intentionally flattered Nixon in this portrait…If he was going to err in his portrayal, he wanted it to be in a direction that would please the subject.”

The American Art Gallery spans over three centuries of art. The oldest works fall mainly into two large categories: portraiture (which is covered by the Portrait Gallery) and landscapes. Early American painters were commonly influenced by nature; just look at America, all vast and varied. I know I’m not American, but I imagine they feel equally proud of their geographical diversity as us Canadians are.
Amoung the Sierra Nevada, California was painted by Albert Bierstadt in 1868. It is a mountain lake view so realistic that you can imagine stepping through the frame and being there. The obvious detail involved in the rock faces, clouds and trees is breathtaking, but what really impressed me what the realism of the moment. Bierstadt captured a life-like moment in time. My favorite part is the small rock jutting out of the water in the bottom left corner. The colors and highlights make the water appear to be gently lapping up against it.

The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone are two massive paintings completed by Thomas Moran. They are imagines of a canyon painted from the same spot and in the same perspective, only 25 years apart. The one on the right, being the earlier work from 1873, is very specific in the positioning of trees and the details of the rock formation. The painting on the left however was painted between 1893 & 1901 and shows the progression of an artist. Geographical accuracy was no longer Moran’s concern. The focus is instead on light & shadow and the mood the colors create.

A fun section of the museum focuses on American folk art. Folk art by definition has been created by your every day person, someone who is not an artist by trade or training but still wants to express themselves in a creative manner. The coolest piece to me was James Hampton’s Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nation’s Millennium General Assembly. Hampton was a janitor who built this elaborate, multi-piece alter set in his garage. You may recognize many of his materials. Rather than throw out garbage at work, he reused it. Discarded furniture, cardboard and burnt out light bulbs were used as a base, then added to with rolls & rolls of used tin foil. The configuration was found in Mr Hampton’s garage after his death and donated to the Smithsonian.

My favorite part of the museum was the Contemporary art. Housed in the Lincoln Gallery (the actual room where Lincoln held his 2nd inaugural ball) were the modern day pieces that I love to dissect meaning from. Nam June Paik’s Electronic Superhighway was very eye-catching. It’s a giant electronic US map that displayed imagines related to each state within them. Cloud Music by Robert Watts, David Behrman, & Bob Diamond, however was ear-catching. This installation has a camera trained on the sky and device that turns the movement of cloud & light to music/sound…very cool, although not very exciting on a clear day.

Finally, my favorite thing I saw today: Monekana by Deborah Butterfield. This horse was originally made of driftwood, but Butterfield wanted the statue to be everlasting so she disassembled it, dipped each piece in bronze and then hand painted it all to look like wood again.

Not the briefest of tours, but there were just so many interesting pieces to share! Hope you enjoyed…next we take flight!
Love & Luck,
Kris