Under the Dome

It wasn't easy but MAD did get there.

Helen Suzman: Fighter for Human Rights had been on display at the Georgetown University Inter-Cultural Center until April 20 and MAD was disappointed to not get there in time to see it. Turns out I was very lucky.

The exhibit, developed by the Isaac and Jessie Kaplan Centre for Jewish Studies and Research at the University of Cape Town, is touring the US and for this week only had been moved to the Russell Senate Office Building Rotunda - on its own an impressive sight. To get there from the Capitol South Metro Station you pass the Capitol, the Library of Congress and then the Supreme Court with Equal Justice Under Law carved on its pediment. You enter the Russell Building in the correct mood to learn about the life of Helen Suzman.

Beneath a dome three stories high, display panels tell in words and show in pictures, letters and documents the story of her life and work


Her parents, Jewish immigrants to South Africa from Eastern Europe, lived comfortably by the time Helen was born in 1917. We see pictures of her as a child and a young woman and mother and then we are amazed to see her as she magically (it seems) turns into a committed fighter for the freedom of all.

Originally sent to Parliament for the United Party, she was a founder of the Progressive Party and its only elected member as well as the only voice in opposition to apartheid for 13 of her 36 years in office. She visited Nelson Mandela on Robben Island and visited lesser and unknown people and places where injustices were being committed in the name of the government. She never gave up and was instrumental in the establishment of a unity government only retiring from elected office in 1989 .

During her entire career as a public servant she stood for the rule of law, even when the law was directly opposed to her own beliefs, believing that the law needed to be changed rather than disregarded.

MAD wonders what the forces were that set her on the course of her remarkable life -How amazing to learn of what one person can do, when most people don't.

How fitting to learn about her in this particular setting.

Chinese Art, Day Two

What MAD doesn't do for you! Hot hot day -in case you didn't figure it out yesterday, MAD hates heat. I walked up 16th Street across from the lovely descending terraces of Meridian Hill a/k/a Malcolm X Park trying to stay in the shade. Followed the sign directing me left onto Belmont for the Meridian International Center, looking down at purple "snow" and sniffing up at what turned out to be the fragrance of wisteria hanging over a brick wall, only to find out (1) the turn onto Belmont (an uphill walk) only was necessary for drivers and (2) I was too early for Metropolis Now (shoulda paid attention to real, as opposed to perceived, time). Only thing to do was go away and come back later.

And am I glad I did - Metropolis Now is sort of the opposite of the calligraphy exhibit yesterday. That was as old as it gets in China and you can't get much newer than this stuff. That was one overlay for MAD. Add on MAD's trip to China in November 2008, the venue of the almost private White-Meyer House and the formality and thoughtfulness with which this show was hung and I had an extraordinary unexpected experience. Since I am not particularly interested in contemporary Chinese art.

At least I didn't used to be.


Across from the portico of the renovated house you are greeted by Chen Zhiguang's three gigantic stainless steel Ants - whose picture is the exhibit's logo. - so magical, even playful, in person with their size and many colors. Volunteer Amy Tomlinson told me that she thinks of them as a reminder of the contrast between the traditionally collective nature of Chinese society and a new emphasis on the individual. Wei Qingji's Spiderman 2 evoked the same connection to me.

Did what I saw yesterday heighten my response today? Over and over I was struck by the juxtaposition and connection between traditional Chinese art and the new in subject matter, materials and energy. Once inside your eyes are filled with a wall covered by Cao Jingping's enormous multi-panelled acrylic Summer, reminiscent of several of the spots MAD saw in China as well as of traditional paintings but wow! the scale and intensity of colors were brand new.


MAD also visited the Temple of Heaven -Liu Ren's Sleepwalker looked like the Temple inside a dream. Visits to both an embroidery and a silk factory were evoked by Liu Liyun's silk and cotton composition A Volume of Landscape depicting ordinary household objects in embroidery and silk sculpture. New Pictures, old materials and techniques.

Wang Xiaohui's self-portrait photos in a succession of clothes from the beginning of the 20th century through now - printed on rice paper .




Tu Shaohui's quiet ink wash on silk Red Wall Numbers 1,2 and 3 using traditional elements of landscape, birds and a person in new styles and configurations to show the current uncertainties of the young in today's China.

Liu Qinghe's Untitled scroll showing a diversity of faces in ink using a material as spiritual tool that both adheres to tradition and fosters innovation.

I better shut up - but I was so astonished by the many elements I encountered and the setting in which they were presented.

Just one more, OK?

Lv Shanchuan uses newstories to create scenes not only for their content but also for their location's power to move and inspire. With Chinese writing on the left hand side, focused on the U.S Capitol and the Mall, January 21, 2009 (wouldn't it have been the next day in China?) does just that.

On display right now in the metropolis of the District of Columbia.

In Other Words

Hot day in the district. Escalators and elevator outage at the U Street Metro Station . At the bottom of that inactive escalator, spotting a hugely pregnant woman walking up, MAD offered to carry up her two hugely heavy bags of groceries. She didn't speak English and MAD doesn't speak whatever she speaks, but somehow the offer was communicated and accepted. At the top, she offered her thanks with a bottle of iced tea and her hand. Sometimes worlds can be communicated without words.

I was on my way to the Freer Gallery's Writing, Carving and Rubbing: China's Calligraphic Arts. A peaceful quiet gallery providing a cool refuge from the heat and crowds outdoors contained examples of Chinese calligraphy. Inscriptions on animal bones and tortoise shells made for purposes of divination morphed into lines of communication and became one of the four arts .

The exhibit traces the development of the six major types of script which began with oracle-bones between the 14th and 11th centuries B.C.E. Having read Peter Hessler's Oracle Bones I was delighted to be able to see an example of a turtle shell with the carvings - only to read the description which identified the carvings as a good fake. At least I got to see what it was supposed to look like!

The scripts - which continued sequentially with Seal, Clerical, Cursive, Running and Standard are presented in the form of rubbings, scrolls and carvings. Even though I may have seen them all before separately, seeing them together made me aware of the lovely differences between these types. I learned about the eight different brush-strokes called radicals that make up standard calligraphy, the version that every child learns in school and saw the Four Treasures of the Scholar's Studio.


But get this: because none of the rubbings, paintings or carvings are translated as part of the exhibit, I was forced to look at them purely as visual art and ignore their original content. The lines on the paper took on meanings to me through the feelings I experienced while looking. No words or thoughts got in the way.

Twice in one day.

School's Out for Sumner

MAD is so out of practice that I almost forgot to write this post.

Today was supposed to be the Textile Museum with Judy but turned into the Charles Sumner School Museum and Archive. The official repository of the Washington DC Board of Education's history, the Sumner School is a beautifully restored 1873 building that was the first permanent school for African-American children in DC. Shiny brass railings, high ceilings and wide stairways make this place feel and even smell like a school. I wonder if this schools was as well taken care of when children were running up and down those stairs.

The first floor displays artifacts and memorabilia from DC schools that have closed as well as a special exhibit of art "Local Color" by Martha J. Smith whose paintings quietly explore relationships between people, many between women and especially between women of color. Some of these paintings are hung in a lecture hall that feels like the students and lecturer have just walked out.

Another room contains an exhibit dedicated to the life and work of Adolph Cluss designer of both the Sumner School itself and the Franklin School. One of the reasons these were a big deal was because they contained multiple classrooms and teachers could divide the students by age level instead of teaching them all together in the same room (They were also divided by race with Sumner being for "colored" and Franklin for "white"). Cluss had enormous influence on the look of the District and we see his work everywhere we go.


Of special note is a hand made timeline of the history of DC schools that is hanging on the wall. In 1870 the DC government began to provide free public education to children of color and only when Brown v Board of Education was decided in 1954 was an end put to racial segregation in the DC Public Schools.

oh - the other decoration in the Sumner School today is bright and engaging art created by the diverse and talented population of current students in the DC Public Schools.

Whole Wide Everyting Else in the World

The time has come to tell you about Grover - you know, cute and furry from Sesame Street.

When my children were young, one of them had a book called Grover and the Everything in the Whole Wild World Museum (We all loved it so much - I have it saved somewhere). Each time we read it we watched Grover visit the rooms in the museum to view the different collections of items:

• Things You See in the Sky Room
• Things You See on the Wall Room
• Things You See Under the Water Room
• Long Thin Things You Write With Room
• Carrot Room
• All the Vegetables in the Whole Wide World Besides Carrots Room
• Things That Make So Much Noise You Can't Think Room
• Small Hall
• Tall Hall
• Things That Can Make You Fall Hall
• Hall of Very, Very Light Things
• Hall of Very, Very Heavy Things
• Things That Can Tickle You Room
• Things That are Cute and Furry - guess who decides he should be displayed in this one?

So why am I telling you about this book (did I tell you we all just loved it?) today? To finish the book, Grover pushes on a door labeled "Everything Else" and it opens to the outside.

Here's the connection :

Today it's been raining. MAD got soaked when she went out this morning and again when she went three doors down to Starbucks for her fix this afternoon.


Mr. MAD had thrown out his back and MAD thought it prudent to stay home and keep him from doing more damage. But my walk on my rain-soaked block near U Street reminded me so much of Grover's emergence. Each time I walk down the street I get to see the status of the Spring flowers. There is a yard of red tulips across the street that are getting ready to pop and I can't wait to see them in action*. There is a triangle at the corner filled with ground covers and Daffodils (almost finished blooming) that I hadn't seen before. One yard has Bleeding Heart in bloom. It's the Whole Wide Everything Else in the World Museum, right on my block.


Bet there's one on your block, too.



*I went out less than 2 hours later to take pictures to show you and the tulips are just about open. April showers, eh?

Forever Free

In memory of Abraham Lincoln, assassinated this day in 1865, I visited the self-contained exhibit Forever Free - Abraham Lincoln's Journey to Emancipation on view at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, main building of the DC Public Library.

Created by the Huntington Library and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History this traveling exhibit uses free-standing panels divided into six thematic sections to describe in his own words what we know of Lincoln's attitude towards to slavery and how he politically worked to end it. You walk around it and read the story which is densely illustrated with autograph writings, photographs, political cartoons and maps (yay maps!) as well as background art showing the context of the time in which the events took place. With a timeline running horizontally across quite a bit of information is packed onto its panels. It does, however, gloss over the fact that the Emancipation Proclamation only applied to the states then in rebellion; reading closely you are reminded that it took the 13th Amendment to the Constitution to abolish slavery throughout the rest of the Union.

Sponsored by the American Library Association Public Programs Office, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission this exhibit and its duplicates are traveling around the country this year of Lincoln's bicentennial, being displayed in libraries throughout the country. MAD thought it was appropriate to see it at a place named for Dr. King who many years later took up the challenge left by the legacy of slavery.

Rest in peace, Abraham and Martin.

Take Me Out

If I can tour it, I can blog it. Notice I didn't say I did tour it, but Nationals Park offers tours and so do museums, so Nationals Park can count as a museum (?) Remember, MAD makes the rules.
Opening Day 2009 at Nationals Park. MAD's OS took her for her birthday present. How fun to be able to get to a baseball game with a 10 minute subway ride. Having arranged to meet near the exit for the ballpark, my son got on my train and came right into my car.

How fun to climb to our seats and see the Capitol from the concourse - and the Washington Monument over the other side.

The park is somewhat utilitarian in its green design and very patriotic in the red, white and blue of its colors. MAD loves navy blue so was very happy looking at the seats. And the big Ws reminded her of Wegmans.

OS bought a program and a pencil as part of my birthday present and we kept score together. Gotta keep my Nationals pencil - it cost a buck - for scoring more games this season.

And for a repeat performance Opening Day 2010. Play ball!

Living Museum

For sure, the Lincoln Memorial counts for MAD - and since MAD makes the rules, a concert on the steps of the Memorial counts too.

The concert, part of the Lincoln Bicentennial Rededication Series was really a living museum. Today's Marian Anderson Tribute Concert was held in honor of the 70th anniversary of the concert performed by Marian Anderson on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on Easter Sunday 1939 after she had been denied permission to since at DAR Constitution Hall and D.C.'s Central High School. Along with performances by the U.S. Marine Band, Sweet Honey in the Rock and the Chicago Children's Choir, Denyce Graves sang the first three songs that Marian Anderson sang that day. She began with America, a simple song that U.S. schoolchildren sing semi-automatically, and ripped my heart right open. Under startlingly blue skies, with the Daniel French Chester statue of Lincoln looking on, her voice filled me and for a few minutes left me with room for nothing else.

Following the music Lincoln also got to see and hear as over 200 immigrants from 52 countries were sworn in as the U.S.'s newest citizens right there at the Lincoln Memorial. Colin Powell welcomed them. So did the rest of us.

Going Dutch

It's been a while and MAD is back. Despite fear of holiday weekend crowds on the Mall, MAD visited the National Gallery of Art to see Pride of Place: Dutch Cityscapes of the Golden Age. This exhibit is closing May 3 and MAD didn't want to run the risk of missing it having heard from YD (younger daughter) that (1) it was good and (2) it has manuscripts and most of all (3) it has old maps - a MAD favorite.




OS (older son) joined me for lunch at Sala Thai on U Street and the Gallery and added a dimension to the visit both by his good company, his intelligence and brief reminiscences of a few days spent in Amsterdam several years ago. Was this exhibit evocative to him? "No" he said, but I got to use the word "evocative" - another favorite of mine - in this post

Neither of us were disappointed. The exhibit used visually lovely and detailed paintings to illustrate the history of the Netherlands - particularly urban history - in the 17th Century. Most of this art emerged from the economic prosperity which was driven by international commerce and celebrated the achievements of this prosperity. How interesting to look at paintings that were created to be viewed as examples of contemporary achievement and now to be able to study history from them as a group.

The corresponding maps and manuscripts from that time period also contain the perspective of the time period. The two media were combined in Micker's Bird's-Eye View of Amsterdam from 1652 that was depicted through clouds, showing patches of sunlight over the heart of the city and the medieval town hall on Dam Square, the view of which even then was over 100 years old.


A timeline of Dutch history of that period was near the entrance to the exhibit. MAD doesn't know much about that period except for what she learned in school relating to the Pilgrims - most of the people in the paintings looked like Pilgrims - and what was the deal with those big white collars? The overlap between art and history today made me eager to learn more. Now I need to (1) get a copy of Simon Schama's The Embarrassment of Riches and (2) read it.